“We, the undersigned, call on Windsor City Council to place the issue of an Auditor General for Windsor on the 2014 Municipal Ballot, for the people of Windsor to decide,” it reads.

The petition began online two weeks ago accompanied by a photograph of a slightly dishevelled-looking Al Maghnieh, the disgraced city councillor from the library credit card scandal.

“Since it’s pretty obvious that City Council was determined to eliminate the Auditor General’s position in Windsor and proceed with a toothless outsourced auditing function,” Synnott wrote, “it’s time to shift the battle to a different venue — you the citizens.”

He’s gunning for 5,000 signatures.

“I want it to be a credible number to say look, this is serious,” he told me. “A lot of people are concerned about this.”

He’s planning a campaign of billboards and lawn signs. He’s looking for volunteers, canvassers and donations. He says he’ll also conduct a telephone poll of residents. He says he has already collected $2,000 in pledges to pay for all this.

Politicians count on public apathy and ‘changing the channel’ to divert attention from thorny issues, he wrote on a blog accompanying the petition. Mayor Eddie Francis and council want one of the thorniest issues they face to “fade away.”

“Ultimately,” he told me, “my goal is to get a ballot question one way or another. It’s going to be so much in the public’s mind that it will be a ballot question even if it’s not on the ballot.”

Mayor Eddie Francis, who voted in July against keeping the auditor general’s position, won’t be voting for this, either. He and council were elected to make decisions, he told me. They debated this one extensively, and they made a decision.

The RFP is already out.

“Council is very different than elected officials at Queen’s Park,” he argued. “We’re the front line. We’re here every day. We hear from our constituents every day. We’re held accountable every day. We reflect the opinions of our constituents.
“If you start putting all these issues on the ballot, do you really need municipal government?” he asked. (FYI: There have been only five questions on the ballot since 1969.)

Coun. Bill Marra, whose motion in July to keep the auditor general’s position was defeated, sees it the other way around.

“I think that’s a very interesting proposal,” he told me.

The provincial government should make it mandatory for municipalities over 100,000 population to have an auditor general, he said. But since it hasn’t, he said, “I would certainly support seeing something on the municipal ballot. It was a decision of council that created some pretty significant debate in the community. It’s a great opportunity, really, to hear directly from the electorate.”

It might have some other positive consequences, Marra added. It might increase voter turnout.

“I can see that being an issue that would galvanize and create an interesting discussion,” he said.

Frankly, I think city hall has lost all credibility to make this decision. This has been going on for four years. They decided to hire an auditor general. Then it took them three years of delays and bumbling to hire one. Then they stonewalled him, virtually wrote him out of their policy for handling fraud and finally fired him at a last-minute meeting after less than a year, before he even had a chance to tell councillors what he was going to do. Some councillors have claimed that we tried an auditor general and it failed. No we didn’t. We never allowed it to get off the ground.

The administration’s report to council in July recognized that an auditor general would clearly be significantly more independent and more effective. But administration recommended against it, and council voted against it.

At the risk of being labelled another “conspiracy theorist,” it’s city hall that has failed. Taxpayers should decide. Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac was quoted in July as saying, “The majority supports us.” Synnott says there’s “strong support” for his side, too. Let’s test it.

But it won’t be easy. No matter how many signatures Synnott gets, it’s council that decides whether a question goes on the ballot. That’s only the first obstacle. At least 50 per cent of eligible voters have to vote on the question. The last time voter turnout reached 50 per cent was 30 years ago. Finally, more than 50 per cent have to approve the measure before it’s binding.

So what questions have we voted on in other municipal elections? Casino gambling, electing councillors by ward versus city-wide, even disarmament. In 1969, voters were asked, “Are you in favour of daylight savings time?”

Surely if we can ask voters about daylight savings time, we can ask them about an independent financial watchdog for their tax dollars.

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